Affliction creating the old Pride vs UFC heavyweight dream matches

Affliction has jumped from being a clothing giant to putting on some of the most anticipated bouts in MMA in the heavyweight division. They're generating old Pride vs UFC matchups which never came to fruition a few years back. With their first card being headlined by Fedor Emelianenko versus Tim Sylvia, it's a throwback to 2003 when both figthers were champs and seemed unstoppable in their respective organizations--Fedor in Pride and Sylvia in the UFC. We can remember at UFC 44 in September 2003 the commentary being "Bring on Fedor" after Sylvia knocked out Gan McGee in the first round of the event. Unfortunately the battle was not able to be put together as the two organizations weren't able to come to terms to make it happen. Even after Zuffa bought out Pride in 2007, negotiations with Fedor and the UFC would end up going nowhere. And thus old Pride vs UFC matchups involving Fedor were out of the question.

While not having the same appeal as in 2003, Affliction was still able to put together the very interesting matchup between Sylvia and Emelianenko last month. Once again another dream matchup of the Pride vs UFC days was set up a week ago by Affliction when Fedor was signed to fight former UFC champ Andrei Arlovski in October--a matchup fans were salivating for when both fighters were tearing things up at heavyweight in 2005. Unfortunatley due to injury, Fedor has been pulled out of the event, but once again Affliction has drafted up a fight between former Pride star Josh Barnett (also a former UFC champ) and Arlovski.

Kudos to Affliction to be able to sign some of the biggest names at heavyweight and put together some of these dream matches that we were hoping to see when Zuffa took over Pride in 2007. If Affliction can now sign Randy Couture to take on Fedor, they will solidify their status as heavyweight kings of MMA.

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Affliction creating the old Pride vs UFC heavyweight dream matches

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